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Asger Jorn

"Style is the expression of a fashionable content where taste becomes its many nuances."

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Notes of biography

Asger Oluf Jorgensen, Jorn, was born in 1914 in Vejrum (Denmark). From 1936 till 1939, he worked in the Fernand Léger’s contemporary Academy, then was an assistant of Le Corbusier in the pavilion -decoration- New Times of the World Fair. The first personal exhibition of Asger Jorn was organized in Copenhagen (Denmark, 1938).
During the war, Jorn lived in Denmark; he painted in this period canvases which were influenced by Ensor, Kandinsky, Klee or Miro. He contributed to the review "Helhesten". In the immediat post-war years, under the name of Asger Jorn, he participated in all new movements. He joined the revolutionary surrealists in 1945.
In 1948, he was a founder of the Cobra movement (Appel, Constant, Corneille, Dotremont, etc.) and was the theorist of it. His first Parisian personal exhibition was held Gallery Breteau in 1948. He painted then very colored canvases in which he rebuilt « the animal and plant kingdom of the symbolism ». Asger Jorn wrote poetry and essays on art (« organic Theory of the art », etc.).
Poor and ill, he came back to live in Denmark in 1951; he began an intensive work on ceramic in 1953. Jorn settled down to Albisola (Italy) two years later. At the end of 1953, he created the international movement for a Bauhaus ”imaginiste”, kind of continuation of the Cobra movement, then participated in 1957 to the International situationism movement (Guy Debord was one of the theorists). At the of the 50s, Jorn began to repaint fire brigades paintings found in the Flea market of Paris; they would be the series "Modifications" and "Disfigurations". He created afterward a set of "drippings", then, from 1964, a series of "unsticked collages" in which appeared persons with simplified forms.
Commited man, Jorn fight all his life for a total freedom of the art. He made a multiple work, painting, writing, collage, tapestry, sculpture in the last years of his life, ceramic, creating a work on paper which counts (etchings, lithographs, illustrations of books, drawings). Jorn also use his art as a rebellion against the sacred. He published « La langue verte et la cuite » in 1968, a pamphlet against the structuralism.
Asger Jorn died in 1973 in Aarhus (Denmark).

Artists on display

The art and the artists display: proclamations, galleries, museums, personal or collective exhibitions. On walls or in shop windows, wise or rebels, posters warn, argue, show. Some were specially conceived by an artist for such or such event, other, colder, have only the letter.

Some were created in lithographic technic, most are simple offset reproductions. They are many those who like collecting these rectangles of paper, monochrome or in games of colours, in matt paper or brilliant, with many words or almost dumb.

We are happy also to be able to greet, by this pages, mythical galleries as those of Denise René, Louis Carré, Claude Bernard, Berheim Jeune, Maeght, Pierre Loeb and others.

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Complete work(s)

Complete work(s)
*« Peintures », 3 Vol., Guy Atkins, Borgers Vorlag, Copenhague/Londres, 1968, 1977 & 1980 All the complete works

Bibliographic track and more

To read about the artist :
  • « Asger Jorn » 2 Vol, T. Andersen & G. Atkins Lund Humphries London 1977 et 1980
  • « Cobra 1948-1951 », collectif, coll. Réimpressions, Ed. Jean-Michel Place,1980
  • « Asger Jorn », Kunstmuseum, Silkeborg, 1982
  •  Cobra, un art libre », Jean-Clarence Lambert, Ed. Chêne/Hachette, 1983
  • « Asger Jorn », Musée de Nimes, 1987
  • « La planète Jorn, 1914-1973 », L. Gervereau & autres, Adam Biro, Paris, 2002
  • « Asger Jorn », Françoise Monnin, Ed. Ides et Calenes, Neuchâtel, 2003
  • « Jorn in Havanna », Troels Andersen et autres, Ed. Fortaget Sohn, Copenhague, 2005
  • « Asger Jorn », collectif, Ed. La Bibliothèque des Arts, 2012
  • « Wemaëre et Jorn, la force des contraires », coll., cat., Ed. Gourcuff-Gradenigo, 2013
To read from the artist :
  • « La Langue verte et la Cuite », Ed. J.-J. Pauvert, Paris, 1968
  • « Discours aux pingouins et autres écrits », ENSBA, Paris, 2002
Website :
www.museumjorn.dk/da/

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Art movements

+ COBRA / 1948-1952 / Christian Dotremont, etc.
All art movements

See & discover

Beyond works currently in stock, it seemed to me useful to combine business with pleasure by letting you discover others works by artists in my gallery. These artworks, now sold or removed from our website, have been in our stock in the past.

These pages will undoubtedly make it possible for some of you to associate an image with its title or the other way round, for others it will be a good time to discover more on such and such artist. For the sake of confidentiality – the pieces being no longer available – we won't display neither their numbering or their price. For whatever reason, make sure to visit this amazing art database with to date 6441 online works just for your pleasure! Michelle Champetier

See & discover